Alzheimer's disease is not recognised as the start when the plaques and tangles are formed in the brain. When Alzheimer's disease is recognised, people who are at the early stage of the disease begin to forget information. They may loose memory and it become difficult for them to remember certain information. Another symptom they may have at the start is that they may have difficulty in spelling and finding the correct words when talking to someone. In these early stages people can look after themselves but as it progresses the symptoms increase, people may experience a decrease in memory even further. They may forget people's names and places and recent events. They begin to forget the most recent information. Another symptom as the disease progresses is that they feel a change in emotions and begin to feel sad and feel scared. They may become withdrawn from everyday life and begin to loose confidence, they may feel a change in personality and experience mood swings. As the disease progresses even further the person may feel scared of the fact that they are beginning to loose all their memory slowly. As the goes into advanced stages, eventually the person will need more supervision and support for all their daily activities. At this stage of the disease it would really help the person in need if people who are really close to them begin to take more care of them and give them support and comfort.

Alzheimer's disease was first identified by a German Psychiatrist known as Alois Alzheimer in 1901. The disease was named after his surname. The first case was of a patient who was a 50 year old lady that came to Alois Alzheimer; the patient's name was Augusta D. The 50 year old showed unreasonable jealousy towards her husband as the first noticeable sign of the disease. Soon a rapidly increasing loss of memory could be noticed. She could not find her way around in her own apartment. She carried objects back and forth and hid them. At times she would begin shouting and screaming. Soon her ability to remember things was severely affected. Alois pointed to objects and she named most of them correctly but immediately afterwards she would forget everything again. When reading, she went from one line to another, reading the letters. When writing, she repeated individual syllables several times, left out others, and quickly became stranded. When talking, she frequently used puzzling phrases and some weird expressions such as, milk-pourer instead of cup. She seemed no longer to understand the use of some objects.
The disease progressed however, towards the end she was completely ineffective, she lay in bed and four and a half years of suffering, she died. Alois Alzheimer had kept in contact with his patient until she passed away in 1906 and then did Alois report the case publicly. Five years following Alois Alzheimer's patient's death there were reports of eleven similar cases being reported.

At this moment of time no one has been able to point out or discover how Alzheimer's is caused. But researchers say it is likely that some factors can be taken into consideration as to what may cause Alzheimer's disease. Researchers say the following factors maybe the cause of Alzheimer's disease:

Genetic inheritance
Ageing
Environmental factors
Diet
General health

The above mentioned are simply risk factors and the researchers aren't that these are actual causes of Alzheimer's disease.

At this moment of time, there is no cure for Alzheimer's disease as it is a progressive and terminal disease. However there are some drugs which aid people who are suffering form Alzheimer's. The drugs don't actually get rid of the disease they simply slow down the progression of it. The drugs used are Aricept, Exelon and Reminyl, these help the patients. The way these drugs work is that as people with Alzheimer's have shortage of the chemical Acetylcholine in their brain, these drugs maintain the existing supplies of Acetylcholine.

A drug called Ebixa is also prescribed to patients, but this drug works differently to the other three. As people with Alzheimer's have excess entry of calcium ions into their brain cell thus destroying the cells and also prevents brain cells from receiving messages from other cells, Ebixa prevents the excess entry into the brain cells. But there is a drawback of this drug and this is that it can't be used for patients who are at the early stages of Alzheimer's it is just suitable for people who are at the middle or later stages of the disease. Patients using this drug may experience side affects: hallucinations, headaches, dizziness, tiredness and confusion. At this moment of time these drugs will halt the progression of the disease and these are the only support available to people as there is yet no cure for the disease.